This Life in Lead

Tuesday, 22 May 2018

I'm on the home stretch now, with the first unit of feudal or timariot sipahis off the production line:

The timariot sipahis were provincial landholders who had been granted their fiefs by the state in return for service and the recruitment of a number of retainers, the number of the latter being related to the size of their individual landholding.

I ended up replacing the lances with wire lances from North Star as those supplied are a little bendy and therefore difficult to push through. There are three different lancer poses which is sufficient to provide some variety:

Along with three command figures:

I have again used lance pennons from Little Big Man Studios, along with a few shield decals, to try to give each figure a unique appearance:

Two more units of sipahis and a dozen dellis to finish, and then the cavalry for the project will be completed.

Monday, 30 April 2018

One of the nice things about The Assault Group is that Pete often throws in a few additional extras on larger orders, some of which can't be ordered directly through the website and are always a welcome addition.

I have ended up with quite a few so decided to combine them into additional command stands, having already completed the Sultan and aide, and a Pasha which has ended up on my wife's desk. First up, a couple of Ottomans staring at a dead bloke:

A Pasha alongside a fellow having a drink:

A Pasha alongside a fellow having a drink, while standing over a dead body (they could get away with that sort of thing in the Renaissance without falling foul of health regulations):

Another Pasha:

And, finally, the regimental Kazan. This is one of the more interesting aspects of Ottoman military life in that the Janissaries revered the dining experience to such an extent that they carried their spoons in their headdress, which speaks volumes for regimental cohesion and also Turkish cuisine:

Finally, a group picture:

I have two more units of Fuedal Sipahis on the painting desk at the moment and will then be moving on to some artillery and the last of the infantry, so will hopefully have the entire project completed over the next two to three months.

Wednesday, 18 April 2018

All the army lists I have read, from George Gush through DBR to Field of Glory, indicate that two or three Janissary units should be sufficient for most army lists. I did think about leaving it at three but, given how much I have enjoyed painting TAG's other Janissary figures, I had to complete just one more. This time a unit armed with pole weapons and swords:

I used the Foundry Napoleonic British redcoat triad on these figures and was happy with the colour for these purposes:

I am wondering however if the colour may be a little on too much on the orange side for actual Napoleonic British as I normally prefer a deeper colour of red for them. I realise officers' coats were more scarlet in colour while those of the the rank and file were of a lighter red, and they were called lobsters during the American War of Independence which is what this colour actually reminds me of, but it is not quite what I have become accustomed to using for British troops in past efforts. That project is still a little way off, so perhaps I will have got used to the idea by then:

That's all four Janissary units completed, with two more foot, four cavalry and six artillery units to complete the project:

There are also a few more command figures to complete, including six of these special edition figures which Pete from TAG kindly throws in as extras on larger orders:

This first one is destined for my wife's desk. She has been asking me for a figure and, given that she likes to remind me that she is one-quarter Lebanese on her mother's side, I thought a middle-Eastern person holding a big stick and telling people what to do would be most appropriate. Besides which I have five more of the fellows to complete over the coming weeks, which is more than I'll ever conceivably need.

Thursday, 5 April 2018

I was very much looking forward to the Easter break and four days off in which to complete my last two units of Janissaries, as well as attend to some odd jobs around the house to keep everyone happy on the domestic front.

Almost on cue I started feeling a little off around 5pm on Thursday with what turned out to be an unseasonal dose of flu, from which I finally gathered up enough strength to emerge from the bed/couch around 1pm on the Monday afternoon, feeling rather short-changed.

Thanks to my very understanding wife I managed to spend the remaining few hours on Monday afternoon basing the following unit of Janissaries, whose green caftan now roughly matches the colour our pool appears to have become during my enforced rest:

The figures are again TAG and are from one of their unit-builder sets, containing the usual four command figures and eight different poses of Janissaries firing or advancing:

I'm still not sure why I chose green for this unit and, around halfway through, began to wonder if I had subliminally picked the colour due to old Robin Hood movies:

That's it for this unit, but obviously not for me with regard to the coming weekend and the yet-to-be-completed jobs around the home.

Tuesday, 13 March 2018

I have managed to complete and base two more units of Akinjis over the weekend, comprised of twelve figures each:

The figures are again TAG castings and are fun to paint. As the majority are holding bows there wasn't any drilling of hands to be done, apart from the command figures. This is one of my pet hates as, even though I have several sets of pin vices, I can be a little heavy-handed and invariably end up taking away a hand or two (including parts of mine on several occasions):

Here they are again alongside the first unit completed last month, making thirty-six figures on eighteen bases in total:

Each unit contains two command bases. This means that there are less actual horse archers but provides more flexibility with regard to unit size:

Which theoretically means that it should be easier to make an evade move, although I'm sure I'll find a way to run them through a unit of Janissaries:

That's it for the Akinjis, which I believe now represents just over the half-way point for the project.

Monday, 19 February 2018

I have three units of Akinjis in the painting queue, and have just completed the first of them:

These are TAG bow-armed Akinjis, with a choice of three command figures and three armed with bows. I also ended up with three of the sword-armed figures, so decided to incorporate one in each unit to round things out, placed here alongside one of the lance-armed command figures on the top right:

I have tried to keep the colours on these figures more subdued than the recent Sipahis of the Porte, using just the odd splash of brighter blues and reds on the horse furniture:

As with all TAG figures to date, I have found them fun to paint and with just enough variety to keep my interest levels from flagging:

I have two more units of twelve figures to complete, which will put me over the half-way mark for the project, and hope to have these done before the end of March.

Thursday, 1 February 2018

Here is the sister unit to the recently-completed lance-armed sipahi unit I completed a few weeks ago:

As with the rest of the army, they are comprised of TAG figures:

I have again used Little Big Men Studios shield transfers for most of the figures, but also free-handed a few including the bird motif on the figure in the middle:

The TAG packs have three command figures:

Alongside three rank and file figures, which provides sufficient variety within the unit:

That is now the two planned Sipahis of the Porte units completed. I have three additional feudal Sipahi units planned, but have two bow-armed Akinji units on the painting table which I am hoping to complete first.